Sunday, December 22, 2013

Snubbed by Hollywood for apparently
being too gay this touching and hilarious Liberace biopic premiered on HBO
therefore denying both Michael Douglas and Matt Damon for Oscar
nominations.It got a cinema release
here in the UK and I loved it.

An obvious choice that will be in everyone’s
end of year lists, this sci-fi thriller was a cinematic phenomenon reminding us
all what we should expect from the big screen.To all those people who pirated the film online, as they couldn’t be
bothered to pay to see it: you missed something special.

An understated documentary that gave an
insight into the terrible AIDS virus of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.A heartbreaking and brilliant film about the
power of people in the face of government prejudice – it was released in a year
where LGBT rights are expanding at an amazing rate in the West, but there is
still so much work to do.A humanizing
and important film.

If you like watching uncomfortable and
ethically ambiguous films then the new film from Joshua Oppenheimer is the
godfather of worrying documentaries.The
entire film is a meditation on suffering and humiliation told in such a radical
form that the audience becomes complicit in the horrors that are
presented.The filmmakers have contacted
thugs and gangsters that undertook the extermination of ‘communists’ in the
‘60s in Indonesia and asked them to tell their story by making a film of their
own; thereby creating the cruelest and most uncomfortable meta-documentary/making-of
films that I have ever seen.

The film does not spend long giving
context to the Indonesian killings that occurred in 1965-66, so with that in
mind I feel that I can make a few comments on the content of the film without really
knowing anything about that era.Oppenheimer does not try to educate the audience about that time, but
instead uses those events as a catalyst to explore Indonesian politics and
culture today.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

It might seem a little 'meta' to review a live book tour about a book that critiques the process of film criticism, but I would feel bad If I were not to legitimise the enjoyment I had of the evening by committing a few words to (digital) paper.

For those who do not know Mark Kermode, he is the recently promoted chief film critic of The Observer, as well as being the important half (sorry Simon!) of the Kermode & Mayo Radio 5 Film Review Show.

I love Mr. Kermode for many reasons:

He lives in Brockenhurst (where I grew up)

He has an unashamed love for films that are not aimed at his demographic (Twilight, to pick an obvious example...but there are plenty others)

He loves horror

He's in a skiffle band and he loves Larmer Tree Festival

I could go on but won't. He is also very good at discussing films.

I must admit at this point that I haven't actually read his latest book yet (I think Santa might deliver it...) But I did read It's Only A Movie, a cinematic autobiography, and The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, an analysis of the economic and semiotic problems with blockbusters and digital cinemas. Both were very funny, but also wonderfully celebratory of the magic of cinema - allowing the same passionate geekism towards Werner Herzog instead of Zak Snyder, Chris Nolan and other comic book films that have captured modern geek culture.

Mark spent the evening reminiscing about pithy bad reviews ("Hatchet Jobs") from critics past, as well as expanding on the central idea revolving about the powerful viral appeal of negativity as opposed to thoughtful reflection on good cinema. He managed to walk the line between cinematic stand-up and cultural theorist, without committing to either position. It was easy to see why he has such a strong following - he makes you feel like he is chatting to you one-to-one, and he loves a good in-joke.

He also had some excellent answers in the Q&A. I asked him about how to gain more invites to press screenings and he immediately launched into an interesting reflection on how times have changed for film critics... And when he finished he asked me if it had been helpful. Lovely bloke.

His book Hatchet Job is available now and would make a very good christmas present

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Over the last couple of years there has
been a real interest in ballet, especially now that the Bolshoi season is shown
in full at PictureHouse
Theatres as well as at Odeons.

Love Tomorrow (Christopher Payne)

For years the cinema has been attacked
as the cultural younger brother of Opera, Theatre and Ballet – a mass culture
format to entertain the masses that can’t afford the more expensive high
arts.Yet every now and then a film
arrives that celebrates high art within the popular medium – so to celebrate
the arrival of Love Tomorrowon DVD
(available here),
here are some of the finer examples:

Every now and then a film is released
that has such an overt conflict of interest that it can make you cringe.Anyone who has seen Happy Gilmore will recognize that product placement can ruin a
film, even if it is a comedy.However
the new film from Disney has just the right level of self-deprecation and
awareness to give different viewers different enjoyments.

The story follows P.L. Travers (Emma
Thompson) deciding whether to sell the rights to Mary Poppins to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks).Disney has invited her to Hollywood so that
she can be involved in the scriptwriting process, but she is cynical from the
start and is horrified that they have included music and animation into her
stoic and serious character stories.

The film is intercut with scenes from
Travers’ childhood where she grew up in Australia.Her father was a banker with an alcohol
problem but a wonderful imagination, who slowly begins to jeopardize his career
with his drunken flamboyance.

Monday, November 25, 2013

The second film from Israeli
writer-director duo Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado is a brutal, yet undeniably
funny, horror-thriller and is looking to make an impact in cinemas this week (6th
December 2013).It has already caught
the attention of Quentin Tarantino who described it as “the best film of the
year”.

The film begins with a thuggish but
ultimately inept detective beating a tied-up suspect in a multiple child murder
case in the face repeatedly with a phone book.The suspect is a weedy religious studies teacher who is accused of
kidnapping girls and removing their heads.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, this
brutal (yet ludicrous) interrogation is recorded by a terrified child with a mobile
phone who puts the footage online for the country to see.Due to this embarrassment, the police chief
is forced to release the suspect and suspend the detective.The detective, now working outside of the
law, manages to serendipitously team up with a vengeful parent of one of the
previous victims who has bought a house (with a basement) in the middle of
nowhere so that he can take the law into his own hands…

Earlier in the year I wrote a review of When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun, a documentary highlighting the continuing injustices surrounding the relationship between Tibet and China. The film looks beautiful and has a great soundtrack featuring Thom Yorke, Philip Glass and Damien Rice.We have two copies of the DVD to give away (in association with AR-PR) before its official release date of the 9th December.For a chance to win simply follow Crispy Sharp on Twitter and tweet a message with #CrispySharpCompetition and #Dragon and we will announce a winner at 20:00 on December 8th.The DVD is available now at AmazonThe winner will be announced on Sunday the 8th of December at 20:00 and will be decided by random.Winners will be sent an email after the announcements

Saturday, November 23, 2013

To celebrate the release of the new romantic film from writer/director Chistopher Payne, Crispy Sharp (in collaboration with AR-PR) has 2 copies of the DVD to give away.

"Set in present day London, LOVE TOMORROW is the story of an ex-ballet dancer whose life is turned upside down after receiving devastating news about her fiancé, Dominic. Wandering the underground in a torment of pain and confusion, a chance encounter with a charismatic Cuban dancer, Oriel offers a temporary distraction. Oriel overlooks her engagement ring and suggests she spends some time with him.

Why she follows this insistent stranger is unclear, and why he tolerates her reserve, mood swings and outright hostility is also unclear. But as the night lengthens and turns into day, the frustrations, secrets and wounds of both their lives begin to emerge, and a fragile friendship promises to turn into something more profound."All you need to do is Like our page on Facebook and reply to one of the messages about this film with "Crispy Sharp Competition" - two winners will be announced on Wednesday 3rd of December.

Love Tomorrow – is available to pre-order on Amazon nowTHIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSEDThe winner will be announced on Wednesday the 3rd of December at 22:00 and will be decided by random. Information will be sent via Facebook inbox after the announcements

Friday, November 15, 2013

If
there is one political documentary filmmaker that has remained unambiguously ideologically
consistent over their career in the (quasi)mainstream then it is John
Pilger.He has fervently been
representing and documenting the plight of the oppressed and dispossessed for
nearly 4 decades, never sensationalising his subjects but instead listening to
them and contextualising their issues and turmoil.

His
latest documentary Utopia sees him
return to his home country of Australia in order to highlight the persistent
and shocking prejudice that is aimed at the Aboriginal communities.He last focussed on this subject in his film Welcome To Australia (available online
it its entirety here)
that highlighted the tragic inequality between the native people of the country
and their exclusion from the pomp and fanfare of the upcoming Sydney Olympic
games. This film returns to the issue,
this time stressing the lack of access to healthcare and employment for the
people, the appalling police brutality that they suffer and the psychological
damage that is done due to the historical revisionism of the white majority
population.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

When rumours started flying that Sandra
Bullock was starring in a sci-fi film that was gearing up to be one of the
event films of 2013, it seemed logical to assume that it was going to be a
big-budget adventure film with plenty of character clichés and genre
conventions.This is not an insult
against Bullock, it’s just that she has always suited mainstream popcorn fodder
and romantic comedies.However, the
rumours turn out to be true – this is the performance of a lifetime in a film
that could dominate critical and popular Top-Ten Sci-Fi lists for years to
come…

Friday, November 8, 2013

Short films, as opposed to
feature-length cinema, are almost always ‘high-concept’, i.e. possible to sum
up as an idea in a single sentence.For
example, what would it be like to wake up over and over again on the same day
(Groundhog Day)? Or what if machines had enslaved mankind without us knowing
(The Matrix)?Due to their length and
budgets, short films usually use a high-concept idea and explore it in a fun and
simple way.

Noah uses a high-concept style to tell a
story:How would a relationship
breakdown look from the point-of-view of a computer user?

The film is told entirely through
screenshots of Apple software, Facebook, Skype and Chat Roulette and explores
the relationships people have with these products, as they maintain the
relationships they have with real people…

Noah is idly browsing porn sites and
Wikipedia as he lazily video-calls his girlfriend Amy, who is concerned about
their relationship changing as they leave for college.When the call is interrupted he freaks out
and thinks that she is breaking up with him, so he logs into her Facebook
account in order to check her messages and interactions with other guys.It then shows the aftermath of his paranoia

If you can accept that the
cinematography of the film is simply watching someone browse Facebook, then the
narrative and the message of the film is pure zeitgeist, in a way that no other
film I have ever seen has captured a moment in time so beautifully (mid-2012;
chat roulette has already disappeared from the cultural conversation).The film manages to be distanced and voyeuristic
and yet intimate, funny and awkward, but not judgmental.Ultimately this captures how young people
interact online more than any teen blockbuster can get close to.

It is the perfect video to go viral
online and I hope it gets seen by as many people as possible whilst it still
feels fresh, although I also think that it will serve as a snapshot (snapchat?)
into online reality for future virtual historians.

Friday, November 1, 2013

“In absence of adequate healthcare, we
have learned to be our own clinicians, researchers, lobbyists, drug smugglers,
pharmacists… We have our own libraries, newspapers, drug stores and
laboratories…”

The ongoing argument about the
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in America seems to mainly focus on one crucial
premise:Should the wider population be
forced to accommodate the healthcare costs of a minority?Proponents of the law claim that by spreading
the cost of coverage around then the overall economic benefits from having a
healthy population will outweigh the costs.Critics of the law claim that it is overreaching (to the point of
tyrannical) and that individuals should look after themselves.This split is mainly drawn down political
lines, with Republicans on one side (against) and Democrats on the other
(for).The question of coverage is not
necessarily focused on specific aliments and conditions.

Imagine how divisive the argument gets
then when (so called) morality is included in the equation.In the AIDS epidemic of the late ‘80s and
early ‘90s, one group of people (the mostly gay minority) insisted that more
action was taken to prevent a specific disease from spreading; and the other
group of people, mostly religious conservatives, wanted to prevent the disease
by eradicating ‘sinful’ behaviour.The
argument is essentially the same though; the right-wingers want to combat a
disease by enforcing responsibility on the individual, whereas the left-wingers
want to encourage collective action to help a disadvantaged minority.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

It is sometimes forgotten that Tom Hanks
spent the 1980s doing relentless comedy films (such as The Money Pit, Turner &
Hooch, The ‘Burbs and Big – all of which are brilliant in
their own way.)Then in 1990 he took a
more serious role in Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Bonfire Of The Vanities, where he played a Wall Street yuppie that
has a public breakdown after keeping the secret of his mistress knocking down a
teenager with his car.From this point
on in his career (albeit with some exceptions) Hanks has seemed to gravitate
towards characters that are alone amongst a crowd of unsympathetic or
misunderstanding onlookers.

Philadelphia, Forrest
Gump, Apollo 13, Cast Away, The Terminal, Charlie
Wilson’s War, The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan and arguably even Toy Story all feature Hanks playing a
protagonist who is symbolically (or literally) detached or stranded away from
the rest of his peers – Captain Phillips is the latest installment of that
trend…

Hanks plays the eponymous captain of a
freight liner which is set to travel through the Somali Basin as it delivers
commercial cargo and international aid to the east coast of Africa.Intercut with the liner preparing to sail,
we are introduced to a number of Somali pirates recruiting members to try and
capture a ship for ransom.After a
number of attempts on the ship, they board and take Philips hostage for 10
million dollars.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

This year, the One World Media Festival is being closed by Jane Bussmann doing her one-woman-show Bono and Geldof are C**ts - a 'lighthearted look at foreign aid and who it really helps'. Bussmann has worked on South Park, Smack The Pony and Brass Eye (all classics of course) and has just recently written the book The Worst Date Ever: or how it took a comedy writer to expose Africa's secret war...

The show has had a sell-out run in Sydney, much like her earlier Edinburgh show, and Crispy Sharp have got pairs of tickets to give away to the event. All you have to do is follow us on Twitter and tweet a message with the hashtag #CrispySharpCompetition and you can be in on the chance to win two tickets on the 9th of November for the closing of the festival at the UCL, Gower Street, London.

In
hindsight, it has become conventional wisdom to some that American (and
European) television news let the public down in the run up to the Iraq
war.Hours and hours of broadcasting
allowing politicians to ‘sell’ the war to the public, not scrutinising the
evidence given for the war robustly enough, and sensationalising and
dramatising the build up culminating in the live broadcast of war as it began
in March, 2003.

It
could also be argued that 30 years of increasingly serious/realistic war cinema
had managed to prep audiences for the inevitable mediated war that was to come
out of 24 hours news channels and social networking.Once the war was in full effect though there
began to be a cautious effort from Hollywood to represent the war differently
as public opinion began to change – looking at the chronology of Iraq war films
shows a serious shift that begins with Lions for Lambs (2007) and culminates
with Buried(2010).

The
first interesting point is the lack
of films produced that focus on the war.There are plenty of violent films that could symbolically service the
fatigue of a nation at war, as well as a huge rise in superhero Good vs. Evil
narratives – but there are few films that are explicitly set during the
occupation.I want to mention a handful
of them to make a point about the role of cinema in reflecting the mood of a
nation:Lions For Lambs (2007), The Hurt Locker (2008), W.
(2008), Fair Game (2010), Green Zone (2010) Buried (2010).

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

I really want to believe that Roland Emmerich
is a smart director.In my mind, his
films simultaneously give the mainstream audience what they want, whilst
including enough layers to appease a populism-skeptic like me.They may all have moments of saccharine family
bonding, interspersed with (at first glance) the worst manifestation of
American exceptionalism – yet upon closer inspection it is possible to see more
nuanced representations of military strength, politics and American civic
culture.

White
House Down takes place
during the morning after President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) has announced that
all American troops are to be withdrawn from the ‘Middle East region’ and all
military contractors removed.This same
morning, Martin Walker (James Woods) is retiring as the head of the
presidential Secret Service team that John Cale (Channing Tatum), an
Afghanistan veteran, is desperately trying to be recruited to.Cale has a tumultuous relationship with his
11-year-old daughter, so after his secret service interview, and due to her
obssession with politics, they go on a tour of the White House to try and bond.

During the tour, Emily disappears to use
the bathroom at the same time that a group of terrorists set off a bomb and
shoot all of the security guards, thereby systematically taking control of the
White House and it’s control centre.John uses his expert training to escape from becoming a hostage and goes
to try and find his daughter, yet he quickly has to concentrate on protecting
the president from the mercenaries.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

The release of the new Wes Anderson trailer for The Budapest Grand Hotel shows that his contact book has grown exponentially since the humble beginnings of his career. The ensemble cast for his latest film is absolutely huge, with lots of A-listers hungry to work with the hipster ironist. Including:

Monday, October 14, 2013

Wikileaks
is an online organization that allows whistleblowers a virtual space to publish
unedited, leaked documents that are deemed politically important and in the
interest of individuals, as opposed to institutions.This seems to me like a noble and democratic
aim, if not slightly vague on the nuances of handling sensitive
information.The problem with making a
decent film about an organization like this is that by its very construct,
cinema has to edit, exaggerate and editorialize information in order to gain an
audience – thus doing everything that goes against the principles of the focus
of the film.It is only possible to give
a version of events, instead of the definitive account of an event – a line
that is spoken towards the end of the film by Julian Assange, the founder of
the website.Here is my version, of the
version of events contained within the film:

The narrative begins with Daniel Burg
(Daniel Brühl) refreshing his web browser on the eve of The Guardian, The New
York Times and Die Spiegel simultaneously publishing thousands of leaked war
logs recounting the Afghanistan war.The
story then jumps back two years to a time when Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch)
first meets Daniel in Berlin as he is trying to get information about his web
vision to any audience who will listen.The two get together and publish their first big story, information
about tax fraud committed by a Swiss bank.As they begin to get more and more leaks published, a tension grows
between them about whether it is ethical to edit the information before
release, in order to protect people, or whether any redactions declare inherent
bias.The story then dramatically builds
to the moment where we began on the eve of the war logs release and the
immediate geopolitical aftermath.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The brand new One World Media Festivallaunches
this morning and will take place on the 8th & 9th of
November. The festival is in association with the successful Open City Docs Festival andwill host two
days of guest speakers and comedians looking at human rights, international
development and aid.There will also be
keynote speeches, industry panels and film screenings including:

Wadjda – the first ever feature film by a Saudi Arabian woman (Haifa
al-Mansour), which has been submitted to the Oscars this year.

TV
Slum– a 2003 film created by
Nairobi slum teenagers in and around the Kenyan capital.

Mare
Chiuso (Closed Sea)– a 2012 film about Libyan refugees
trying to get to Italy filmed on their mobile phones by the travellers in the
boat.

Leave to Remaina film made with asylum seekers in East London about the
immigration system.

The event takes place
at University College London and is free as long as tickets are booked online
in advance.They are available here from today (Thursday
10th October)

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

It
is a growing concern amongst certainfilm
critics that any film that has a target audience other
than 15-35 year old, heterosexual, middle-class men will probably receive a
poor critical review, irrespective of the box office takings or the quality of
the film.The harshest attacks from critics
and the more aggressive side of the twittersphere are usually aimed at cinema
produced for teenage girls, even if they are one of the most vocal audiences at
declaring their love for the films/franchises that they embrace.The tragedy here seems to be the lack of
imagination from other demographics of filmgoers at empathizing enough with
young women/girls in order to enjoy a film that is aimed at them.

MacDonald’s
adaption of Meg Rosoff’s much-loved debut How I Live Now is a film that
unashamedly gets inside the head of it’s teenage protagonist.From the second it opens we hear a cacophony
of teenage angst inside the head of Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), who we then follow
for almost every shot of the film.Daisy
is a 16 year old American girl who has been sent to England for the summer to
spend some time with her 3 cousins, Edmond (George MacKay), Issac (Tom Holland)
and Piper (Harley Bird) and her Aunt Penn, who incidentally works for the UN.She initially resents this move but ends up
falling for the quiet and outdoorsy Eddie.The narrative thus begins as a teenage love story…

Monday, October 7, 2013

For those who don’t already know of him,
Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian cultural theorist that uses psychoanalysis and
Marxist theory (amongst many other ideas) in order to uncover the hidden
ideological challenges and reinforcements contained in moments in pop
culture.He has written countless op-eds
about geopolitics and the decline of the USSR, as well as analysing popular
films and cultural trends as reflections of popular conversatism / capitalism.

In The
Pervert’s Guide… he returns for a second installment of cinematic
deconstruction using iconic (and guilty pleasure) moments from the last half
century of film history to explore his ideas about ideology – the central tenet
of his argument being that at precisely the moment when you expect to be taking
a break from politics and ideology, it is influencing you the most on screen.He does this mainly by delivering a lecture
(or series of mini-lectures) in the form of a voice-over projected over a
number of clips from classic films. Alongside this however are moments where he
steps into the set, dressed in character, in order to reflect on the ideology
of the film whilst inside the action – as in the picture below from Titanic.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

There are three film coming up towards the end of this year that look brilliant - and furthermore they all seem to focus on the dark side of the American Dream Factory. The first film focuses on Hollywood, the second is set within DisneyLand and the third shows a pair of high school kids simulating a school shooting. All have obvious themes of media and postmodernism, all of them revealing the inner workings of the 'culture industries' (Film, Theme Parks, Television) in a dark way:

The first is the joint venture from Paul Schrader (Director) and Bret Easton Ellis (Screenwriter). I have an unhealthy obsession with Ellis and can't wait to see his first cinematic narrative (regardless of the questionable response from its American release.) The film focuses on an unhealthy relationship between an amateur filmmaker (James Deen) and his leading star (Lindsay Lohan) who is having an affair. The symbolism of using a porn actor and a troubled child-star in this narrative provides an apt metaphor for Hollywood and exploitation...

Friday, September 27, 2013

If there is one thing that historians,
politicians, economists and other cultural commentators can agree on, it is
that everybody loves a milestone.Five
years after the financial quasi-apocalypse that reverberated around the world,
documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (director of the epic Paradise Lost documentary trilogy) sits down with the man at the
epicentre of the crisis to look back and explore what happened and why.

Hank Paulson was the Treasury Secretary
at the time and was part of the most exciting/terrifying moment in modern globalisation.The only problem is: can he explain the
mind-bogglingly complicated financial products in a way that audiences can
understand? (Especially as the investment bankers themselves weren’t sure about
them.)

The film has been created with two long
interviews with Hank and his wife Wendy, surrounded with news media footage of
the crisis as it unfolded.Having made alot of notes during this film,
allow me to attempt to explain the narrative of the before remarking on the
construction of the film: